Passengers at St. Louis Lambert International Airport were confused on Saturday after a check-in agent at an American Airlines counter at the Eastern end of the main terminal accidentally handed passengers boarding passes without circling the departure time, gate and destination.
“It was a nightmare”, commented María Alejandra Jimenez, stock photo model from San Francisco, about the harrowing experience. “Passengers were walking all over the place. Some went down the escalators to the rental car desks on the lower level, others went home and came back to the airport in the late afternoon when our flight had already departed. There was no way to find out where we had to go and when to be there as the agent gave us our boarding document straight from the printer without using a pen to circle the relevant data.” Jimenez’ odyssey continued when she mistook the flight number 2515 for the boarding time. “This is how they spell out times in Europe. How am I supposed to know how much this is in real hours?”
In the hours after the incident, confused passengers wandered around the concourse level bumping into each other, opening the delivery entrance of the Hudson News stand and attempting to enter the Delta SkyClub without an eligible same-day international First or Business Class ticket on a Sky Team-operated flight.
St. Louis Airport Authority sources confirmed that the employee has since been dismissed on unpaid leave until completing a one-week refresher course.